Chapter Nine: Seeds for the Future
Everything was bright, the sun itself seemed to burn white into the blue skies which hung it as Mariel's eyes adjusted to the sudden, overwhelming amount of light around her. Distantly, though not too far off, she could hear the birds' cheerful chirping, brought to her by the warm summer breeze. With it, the smell of freshly fallen morning dew, as well as flowers in full bloom, wafted her way. A woman – perhaps beside her, she could not tell – was humming a sweet, cheerful melody and gradually, as though materializing from the air itself, Mariel could feel the woman's arms around her, tight and protecting in their hold.
Then the woman's voice halted, if only for a second, before sounding again as a high-pitched, musical laugh. Apparently the girl she held, without Mariel's command to, had whispered something highly entertaining into her caretaker's ear, causing the abrupt stop.
"You ever are a silly girl," she murmured fondly to Mariel, tucking a strand of the young girl's curling brown hair behind her ear. She then reached out again for the girl's face with her own pale white fingers, softly brushing the girl's chin as she tilted it upward. Mariel's eyes flickered to the beautiful woman's face then, focusing on her eyes which had, all of the sudden, grown quite somber.
"But you should remember that one, my Mariel," she gazed intently into the girl in question's eyes, her pure silver ones as equally unnatural as Mariel's own.
"Repeat after me," she commanded as she once more hummed the melody of before, though this time all the cheer had left it for Mariel.
Her sudden sobriety frightened Mariel, however, and she cast her eyes wandering at her bright surroundings. The cheerful grass which the happy summer breeze played with was a verdant green smattered with outbreaks of yellow, pink, and light blue as many and more flowers had sprung up to interrupt the uniform green.
Then her gaze was jerked back to the woman's, her face suddenly restrained once more. "Promise me. Promise me that you will remember." The woman – for still Mariel was unsure of who she was – had an unexplainable sense of urgency in those few, tightly spoken, words. Her eyes were overcome with worry, fear, and some other emotion that Mariel had not seen often enough to categorize.
"Who are you?" she blurted, not thinking. Her captor smiled somewhat bittersweetly down at her young prisoner, her silver eyes glistening with matching tears. When she spoke again her voice was a faint whisper, seemingly miles away, in the young girl's ear.
"Don't forget. Promise."
Mariel jerked free of the woman's hold. "No!" she screamed, her voice girly and childish, "I don't even know who you are!" A single tear spilled from the woman's eye, falling softly onto Mariel's porcelain cheek. Then all was transformed.
"You must forget us! – forget everything." Once more was the woman there, this time kneeling before Mariel with her hands placed on the girl's shoulders. Beside the woman stood a man, quite tall, though when Mariel tried to focus on his features they were nothing but a smeared blur, as though her eyes were watering though she knew they weren't.
The air no longer smelt of life and purity, but rather of blood, iron, and smoke. She was in a dark, smoking field and all were corpses and dead creatures about her. Melted, dented metal and ash.
"Mariel," the woman continued softly, her usually lilting voice broke as she said her name, "my darling, you must forget us." And so she began to hum a different, far more haunting, tune than the sweet melody of before. Already Mariel could feel the memories – her memories – being torn, ripped, from her mind.
"No!" she cried, once more in that shrill, adolescent voice of hers, thought it was not quite so young as before, in the meadow. "Mother!" she pleaded, her heart suddenly aching. Her mother – for suddenly Mariel knew that's who the woman was – gently brushed the tears from her face. But it was no use, the onslaught had already begun.
"I don't understand," she managed through sobs. "I can never see you again?"
Her mother merely shook her head, no longer able to speak and she shut her eyes, tears freely pouring from them. But, uninterrupted, the song continued. The girl shrieked in anger, turning instead to the man behind her.
"Papa!" she ran to him, "Papa! – surely you can't –!" the words died in her throat with one hard gaze from his amethyst eyes, so hard they could have been hewn from the stone itself. She knew what it was he thought – that she should be strong, brave, and face her fears, not cast them off but face them. In that gaze was communicated all the love he felt for her, the worry, the pain, but above all the pure, raw strength. He would not be swayed – and neither should she.
Obediently, noiselessly, she wiped the tears religiously from her eyes, drawing herself up straight. When they shot back up to meet her father's she suddenly gasped – for it was not his eyes at all that she saw, but, rather, dark, black, and cruel ones.
For a moment she could but stand there in pure, muted terror, unable to command a single muscle in her body to be galvanized into the inevitable flight that would surely ensue. Terror grasped its cold, frigid hand about her heart and sent chilling goosebumps down her spine. Her heart began to pound furiously in her chest, gaining tempo, even as her breath became ragged.
You shall be mine, a voice sounded suddenly, invading her mind – if voice it could be called, truly, for it sounded bestial, full of such rage and hate that the distorted tones it sent out seemed more animal than sentient being.
She turned to flee and somehow managed her frozen limbs to obey her, her bare feet flew across the field of ash and stone, soot and blood and who knew what else. Her long, religiously toned, legs were the only thing that could keep her from him. There was no thought controlling her brain other than to run, to flee, to escape the mad, black man that wanted her very soul.
And then, from nowhere, she felt fire gripping her, burning arms restraining her, forcing her to breathe without air.
She heard words softly gasp free of her lips, no longer in the tones of a child, but comprehension was like trying to read blurred words on the soaked pages of some heartbreaking novel – the ones with the realistic endings; she knew, without having the specifics, what the outcome would be. Her eyes flicked up to the dark, evil man's own black ones but she did not find what it was, whatever it was, that she had hoped to find there. Her words, had they been heard at all, made no effect on him.
His grip tightened, mercilessly, his fire burning through her skin until she felt its heat crackling in her very bones. She would have cried but for the merciless forearm he pressed into her mouth with such a force that it nearly broke her jaw. Tears flooded her eyes as the smell of burnt flesh engulfed her nostrils.
You cannot escape, his words seemed to burrow down to her very core, forcing her heart to resume its rabbit pace. He held her shaking body firmly against his, crushing the oxygen from her lungs. I have claimed you. You are my fate.
Without warning, she felt an unbearable, bursting pain in her neck as his teeth sunk into her flesh. A muffled scream roared from her mouth at the awful pain as her lifesblood was sent, pouring, from the wound in her neck to the mad man's lips.
"Ahhh!" Mariel awoke with a cry, jolting upright from her tangled, sweaty sheets. She fought against the restraining things with a frenetic violence and then, suddenly, she was free and tumbled to the cool stones below her. The fall was painful but she hardly felt it as she scrambled into the nearest corner of the still strange, dark room. Forcing her back against the wall, she tried to slow her heavy, frenzied breaths into a more relaxed tempo.
Several more seconds passed before she remembered where she was, who she was – most certainly not some young, ill-fated child – and it was only then that her breathing truly slowed. She pushed back her damp, sweaty hair from where it was stuck, plastered, to her forehead.
Just a dream, she thought, closing her eyes in an attempt to calm herself. Instead, the black eyes of the mad man who had attacked her burned behind her irises and her eyes flew open in an instant.
"It was just a dream!" she cried desperately to her cold, empty room.
No, a voice suddenly spoke in her mind – not the roaring, bestial one of before but a cool, collected one. It was a vision of what has, and what yet will, come to pass.
"Get out of my head!" she screamed to him, tugging violently at her hair. "All of you! – get out!" Her scalp was burning from the force at which she was pulling, but she did not relinquish her grasp. "It's my mind! Mine! My thoughts – my own thoughts! You haven't a right to them!" And then, suddenly, she was weeping. Her hands fell limp at her side, their previous violent task all but forgotten.
After several more minutes spent in miserable silence, she quiesced.
"Of what yet will pass?" her voice, cracking and desolate, spoke to the empty room. Perhaps she really was going insane, but she didn't really care.
She waited on baited breath for a minute or so, and, unsatisfied with the silent answer, she spoke again, "Tell me – show me!"
"Avar gohethe –!" she began to chant, words forming in her mind from nowhere, a sudden anger seizing her. Fine then, she thought bitterly to herself, I will show myself.
Slowly, without consciously becoming aware of it, control was slipping from her. Almost possessed, she continued on chanting, voice nearly demonic. Her pupils dilated, a dark and inky substance spreading, like a poison, across their purple depths, not satisfied until they had conquered the whites as well, leaving her with entirely black eyes.
Spit flew from her mouth as she continued on chanting, but then, as soon as she had begun, she stopped. Her head hung low, as though exhausted from the effort and her panting slowed.
Then she let out a bloodcurdling scream and her head snapped backward in a motion that should have broken it. Her eyes flew open, the black ink entirely gone, replaced with pain, misery, and the reflection of flames played across their surface. Her nails dug furiously into the inlaid stone she lay on, clawing like some trapped beast. Blood soon trickled down onto the stones, spilling free of her cracked, broken, and stained finger nails.
The pain she felt was unimaginable, the least of which being her broken nails. Her very flesh felt aflame, her mind seemed to have been in torture for years, decades – though in truth it could not have been more than a handful of minutes.
"Avrar aneth! Avrar aneth!" she sobbed silently, knowing not which language had tumbled free of her lips, nor why. "I repent! I repent!"
A/N ~ Here's a quick one I just typed out in one sitting – so I apologize if the quality started going downhill, but I wanted to accomplish something :D Thanks for the reviews! – and please, if you like my story review it! Your thoughts can only help!